


what we do (or don't do) in the shadows

by galaxy_witch



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Humor, Ghosts, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Kissing, M/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 01:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21291290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxy_witch/pseuds/galaxy_witch
Summary: Sure, it may be a few minutes to midnight. He and Keith may be making out in an abandoned, broken down home that smells faintly of smoke and week-old garbage, but Shiro is absolutely not scared. He isn’t scared of the dark, or anything that may be lurking in the shadows. This is exactly how he wanted to spend the last few moments of Halloween night.(Or at least that’s what he tries to tell himself.)
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35
Collections: Haunted VLD Exchange 2019





	what we do (or don't do) in the shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Misttiique](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misttiique/gifts).

> This was written as a gift for the VLD Haunted Exchange!! I hope you enjoy :)

Shiro’s cool, calm–there’s nowhere he’d rather be at this very moment.

He has the boy of his dreams in his lap, a tongue down his throat, and a smudge of black lipstick streaking from his lips all the way down his chin. Shiro’s astronaut helmet was abandoned long ago when Keith shoved it off of his shoulders and took his cheeks in his calloused hands–rough from the hours Keith spends between building spacecraft engines and helping at his uncle’s auto shop, and just how Shiro imagined them. Maybe if he gains the courage, he’ll sneak a hand over the curve of Keith’s ass and poke a thumb into the back pocket of his black skinny jeans.

It’s the kind of courage that he felt about an hour earlier when he was surrounded by music and laughter and Halloween themed mixed drinks–and _Keith_, who showed up to Matt’s party looking like a vampire kid’s wet dream. The costume wasn’t too far off from Keith’s everyday attire, but the lipstick, plastic vampire teeth, and The Cure t-shirt really added to the dramatic flair.

Shiro wants to sustain the type of courage he felt as Keith led him out the door of his and Matt’s apartment, rough voice insisting that they _go somewhere more private_.

So, they did; but instead of being brought back to Keith’s own apartment, he took Shiro’s hand and led him down the road towards the infamous abandoned Victorian home just a block away from the university where he currently studies, while also working as a TA.

Sure, it may be a few minutes to midnight. They may be making out in an abandoned, broken down home that smells faintly of smoke and week-old garbage, but Shiro is absolutely _not_ scared. He isn’t scared of the dark, or anything that may be lurking in the shadows. This is exactly how he wanted to spend the last few moments of Halloween night.

(Or at least that’s what he tries to tell himself.)

Shiro has been afraid of the dark for as long as he can remember. It has always been one of those irrational fears that creep in for whatever reason during childhood, like heights or spiders or flying–and it always stuck with him. As an adult he’s learned that there is much more to be scared of; like failure, or losing loved ones (and not to mention the loans he had to take out to afford his duel Masters/PhD degree program in Astronomy).

The house, though, would have given him the creeps even in the daylight. The 1870 Victorian has been abandoned as long as anyone who resides in town can remember–like a cruel running joke, no one knows where or when the rumors start and stop. During the first week of his degree program, Shiro was told by multiple students and faculty that they had seen shadows moving past the windows at all hours of the day, and lights glowing dimly through cracked glass despite the home lacking power for at least a few decades. Most recently he overheard a couple undergraduate frat-bros talking about how they haze freshman pledges each year by forcing them to walk through the house, some getting so scared that they run out in tears. Nothing particularly devastating has happened in the house as far as anyone knows, but in a small college town there’s no way to stop the rumors that spread around.

Shiro may be a skeptic, but there’s no denying that this house, especially in the dark, is damn _creepy_.

He manages to suppress his mostly-harmless childhood fear of the dark for the first five minutes after they enter the home. As Keith led Shiro through the ominously open door of the house, all he could think about was getting Keith’s lips on his own. Who cares what was lurking in the shadows?

The weeks spent pining over the hot engineering TA in his degree program, with who he built a tentative friendship with, fueled by a dash of tension, was well worth the wait.

They settle in on an old sofa in the corner of what once was a living room. The old piece of furniture hums underneath them when Keith falls into Shiro’s lap, and Shiro silently hopes that the sofa doesn’t give out completely.

Keith kisses the way he looks–rough, but warm; strength and passion and _heat_ in each swipe of the tongue. Shiro had come to know Keith’s confident aura, it was a kind of energy he would radiate after acing a project proposal, and Shiro saw the same spark of assurance right before Keith leaned in to kiss him for the first time. If Shiro’s being honest, he knows that he would never deny Keith of anything he asked for, even if it meant braving the dark.

Shiro’s fears do catch up with him though, affecting the fluid movements of his mouth when the sound of a floorboard creaking a few feet away from them puts him on edge. If there are mice or rats or ghostly dogs running around the floor, Shiro wants nothing to do with them.

Keith pulls away just a bit, noticing Shiro’s distraction.

“What?” Keith mumbles into Shiro’s mouth, not loosening his grip on Shiro’s collar for even a moment.

“Nothing,” Shiro squeaks back. He can see Keith’s forehead crease even in the darkness of the old house.

“You’re lying,” Keith insists. Shiro could mention the creaking floorboard, as Keith seems to not have noticed, but he’d rather get Keith’s lips back on his again. Preferably, though, somewhere not so dark and threatening.

“Do you want to take this somewhere else?” Shiro tries to redirect his fears into a harmless suggestion.

“I think it’s pretty cozy in here, don’t you think?” Keith teases as he wipes a finger down the dusty couch cushion next to his and Shiro’s thighs.

Shiro laughs with the most sincerity he can find within himself, but it isn’t much.

“Seriously, is everything okay?” Keith pushes further.

“Yeah! I just, um,” Shiro avoids Keith’s eyes, which proves pretty hard to do even in the dark.

“Shiro,” Keith starts, “are you scared?” He doesn’t seem to be teasing. There’s no malice, just sincerity. Shiro _is_ quite terrified, but Keith’s concern still makes him feel warm.

“No! No way, I just,” Shiro has never been a good liar.

“Shit, you’re so cute,” Keith’s pursed lips turn into a smirk and he pulls Shiro in for one, chaste kiss. “Let’s go, it’ll be easier for me to see what’s under that space boy suit in the light of my apartment anyway.”

Shiro lets out a genuine laugh this time, feeling relieved, but foolishly so, for a second–before his laughter is cut short by a loud bang from upstairs.

They freeze and look at each other, eyes widening in a silent question.

“What was that?” It comes out as more of a statement than anything. Shiro doesn’t really want an answer.

Keith shrugs. “Probably some undergrads breaking in, or a stray cat. Wanna go check it out before we go?”

“No!” Shiro protests, but Keith has already made up his mind. He pulls out his cell phone and turns the flashlight on. Keith reaches out for Shiro’s hand and pulls him up off the creaking couch, in the direction of the stair case.

“Don’t worry, I’d never let anything happen to you, Shiro.” Keith nearly sings the sentence, but Shiro can tell he means it.

As Shiro is coming to learn, he can’t say no to Keith.

Keith leads them both upstairs, ducking under cobwebs and taking feather-like steps to avoid the incredibly loud groans of the wooden boards. Shiro walks carefully behind Keith and doesn’t let go of his hand.

Scattered around the floor at the top of the stairs are worn newspapers and what appears to be broken glass from a couple picture frames. Shiro kicks everything aside, revealing a faded red and green carpet. There are various questionable stains on the rug and a few indiscernible bugs crawling around, and Shiro tries to ignore his disgust by redirecting his attention to Keith and the direction he’s headed in.

Keith nods at the open door at the end of the hallway, gesturing for them to continue. Shiro follows Keith to the door, ignoring various glass shards and how his heart won’t stop beating faster.

The two reach what was probably once a bedroom and begin to enter. Shiro anticipates seeing an old mattress, a broken lamp, a few college kids with spray paint cans; or at the most a stray cat pawing at a dusty wooden rocking chair.

What he doesn’t anticipate seeing when Keith fully pushes the door open is a dark, shadowed figure standing still yet menacing in the center of the room.

It takes Shiro all but three seconds to start running. He knows a noise escapes his lips, but he doesn’t have any time to regret how loud of a yelp he lets out.

Shiro runs out of the room with Keith’s hand still locked tight to his; he feels like he’s dragging Keith along because of how fast he’s running down the hallway. Shiro thinks he hears Keith say, “Shiro, wait,” as he continues to run, but his adrenaline is on hyperdrive, and it won’t let him stop or slow down.

Keith doesn’t try to let go as they approach the stairs and fly down, but he does mumble something to Shiro that sounds like _be_ _careful_. The warning is of little use, and it’s at his last step that Shiro miscalculates and trips, miserably. It happens in an instant, and before he can catch himself, he lands face-up on the dirty floor with Keith falling down on top of him. It’s quiet, for an eerie second, until Keith is sitting on top of Shiro and holding his face in his hands.

“Holy shit–Shiro, are you okay?”

To be honest, Shiro isn’t too sure.

Before Shiro can respond, he hears laughing from the top of the stair case, no, cackling–and it sounds too familiar.

The shadowy figure from the room upstairs begins to descend, and as the figure gets closer, Shiro can make out its face in the darkness.

“Gee, this went a lot better than I anticipated,” the shadow spoke.

“That wasn’t funny, Pidge,” Keith growls out.

“Pidge,” Shiro can see her clearly now. Matt’s little sister, and a current computer science major at the town’s university. “It was just Pidge,” Shiro reassures himself.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you, but you were so spooked that you wouldn’t listen,” Keith grumbles, but he can tell that Keith’s frustration is directed towards Pidge rather than himself.

Pidge looks smug with a hand on her hip, as if she won a game with a hefty grand prize.

“I was actually on my way back to my dorm when I saw you guys sneak into the house. I know how much of a scaredy-cat Shiro is, so I figured I’d seize the moment.”

Growing up at the Holts’ residence meant that not only Matt, his lifelong best friend, knew all of his fears and flaws, but so did his sister.

“No I’m not,” Shiro pouts, Keith rolls his eyes but then wipes the look off of Shiro’s face with a kiss.

“You’re very brave, Shiro,” Keith says, and Shiro can’t even be a little upset at the taunt; he knows that Keith is just trying to flatter him.

Pidge winces at the public display of affection.

“Gross, I’m outta here,” Pidge whines. She doesn’t get the chance to leave, though. Her whine is followed by a thump from the corner of the room, which catches all of their attention. Pidge stops walking towards the door and turns back around to investigate the noise.

The three scan the darkness and their eyes land on something in the corner of the room. Shiro’s exhausted and now aggravated upon seeing another dark silhouette of a figure in the corner, over by the couch that he and Keith were just occupying ten minutes earlier. Shiro can’t be sure who the person is, but at this point, he’s too tired to give into another Holt family prank that plays on his fears. Matt and Pidge have a history of ganging up on him.

“Matt, is that you?” Shiro asks.

“You’re too late, loser. I already came to scare them.” Pidge turns to the silhouette, arms crossed and waiting. The figure stands still, no movement or sound, waiting for the group to play along with its games.

“Matt, c’mon.”

Nothing.

“Matt?”

The figure doesn’t respond verbally to Shiro then, but it does react. Like a scene in a bad horror movie, the dark figure begins to float–phantom like and terrifying.

Unlike a bad horror movie, this is Shiro’s life and he is most definitely witnessing an indistinguishable figure floating, weightless and moving higher up towards the ceiling, in the corner of an abandoned house on Halloween night.

This time, it’s Pidge that screams and Keith who hastily grabs Shiro’s hand.

Shiro is dragged out of the house in record time.

They keep running, and none of them look back.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [twitter](http://twitter.com/emotabek) !


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